Again, I know there is no LEGAL right to this as concerns the NCAA and Penn State. But I absolutely 100% believe that ANY "defendant" --- be it in the legal system or some other place --- who pleads guilty should still get a chance to advocate for himself at the "sentencing stage."
Fair enough if you disagree.
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FWIW (this is tangential to the 2 paragraphs above), among the things that Penn State could have said at the "sentencing stage" in terms of advocating for themselves:
(1) our November 2011 University leadership did not HAVE to commission the Freeh Report it in the first place, yet we did.
(2) our November 2011-July 2012 University leadership did not HAVE to release the Freeh Report to the public at the exact time that we ourselves saw it, yet we did.
(3) our November 2011 University leadership removed all of Spanier, Curley, Schulz and Paterno from their jobs within 96 hours of the story breaking. This is another thing we did not HAVE to do.
(4) our November 2011-July 2012 University leadership is not and will not be a plantiff to any of the lawsuits currently active (or being considered) against either the NCAA or Louis Freeh.
With respect to the Bold - I'm sorry... I thought there was a consent decree that was signed. As your four points indicate... they didn't HAVE to sign it. And, as LJB observes, to the extent that the option was "sign this or we're going to shut you down" then PSU
still made a choice it didn't HAVE to make. That, my friend, is participation, like it or not. EDIT: And, I can't prove it to be the case, but I doubt Erickson went in there and said nothing on behalf of leniency for PSU. I don't pretend to have all the events surrounding this event within my knowledge, but that said, I also don't think there is anything out there which shows that Erickson just fell on the sword either. You'd probably know that better than me, though.
It's not like a convicted murderer gets to choose his punishment "Well, given the death penalty or life in prison, you're honor, I'll take life" Sure... maybe he gets to make some sort of remorseful statement. Who gives a fuck? That doesn't reduce a death sentence to a life sentence if the murder chooses a bunch of nice flowery words.
Beyond all that, and directly concerning PSU's participation.... I say again,
Penn State commissioned an independent investigation.
Penn State submitted said investigation to the NCAA. Now, if the Board was stupid to allow the Freeh report to be public prior to their own eyes seeing it, so be it - But- that has literally
nothing to do with the NCAA's punishment. Both in how the reality played out, nor in terms of some kind of mitigation.